Geethica Naidu’s new pashmina menswear edit captures Ladakh’s beauty

When founder and designer Geethica Naidu introduced Ame Studios to the city, her aim wasn’t just the revival and preservation of India’s traditional crafts and textiles or a strong focus on slow fashion and artisan empowerment. It was also to trace the origins of crafts, documenting their evolution and creating platforms for artisan communities. A glimpse of which we saw at the launch of the label’s second collection, Tseri, in the form of a senorial exhibit of the region’s stones, mountain dust, raw wool, accessories and fur coats of the nomads and more.

As a continuation of their debut collection, Pashm — a luxurious and conscious edit that celebrates the rich heritage of authentic pashmina wool and the nomadic communities that produce it — Tseri too is an ode to the Changthangi nomadic herders. Geetika’s immersive journey of living with the nomads inspired the collection, tracing the process from the Changthangi goat’s undercoat to the finished piece.

Pashm’s ensembles are made exclusively from undyed pashmina fibres with a palette of cream, beige, brown and natural white that reflects the genuine, natural shades of the goat’s wool.

“While I was researching the Tibetan Plateau in Ladakh, which is the birthplace of the finest pashmina fibre, the colours of the mountains struck me most. Life there is very slow and one day, while trying to catch my breath, I realised the mountains weren’t brown at all. I kept observing them, picking up a few pebbles without knowing they would later inspire this collection. It took time to understand what I’d seen. The land, the nomads — there was still so much to learn. I kept returning to the photographs our team captured and each time I noticed more: colour, texture and pattern. I found myself paying close attention. This entire collection grows from that experience,” Geethica shares.

Inspired by the stillness and spirit of the mountains of Ladakh, Tseri is a term often associated with the Ladakhi language means life-long and the collection itself translates the visual landscape, shifting between light, the soft wind and the slow weathering of stone, into wearable forms.

“It’s about the textures, colours and patterns of the landscape and how they can be translated into a weave. As a textile designer, I see textiles as much more than just weaving, but because I personally love the loom, I naturally channel everything towards it. This collection is menswear. After our first launch, many men asked for more options, so it evolved organically. My silhouettes, both in the first collection and now, are deliberately simple. I don’t enjoy exaggerated forms because the textile itself should speak — our uniqueness lies in what and how we weave. Clean, minimal silhouettes allow the fabric’s character to stand out. That’s been our focus here as well, with a range of jackets and shirts,” she reveals

Unlike the draped, soft luxury of pashmina, Tseri pieces often lean toward a more structured and versatile utility aesthetic. It includes items like jackets, shirts, tops, dresses and trousers for both men and women, designed for a modern, mindful lifestyle. It borrows colour from the monochromatic beauty of Ladakh to form a palette of natural, earthy hues like warm browns, misty blues, mauves, natural whites and various shades of grey that mimic the rocks, rivers and skies of the Himalayas using natural dyes.

“We worked with extensive photographic references, but much of our process centred on returning to the region itself. We collected many more stones and matched each one to a Pantone shade. Using these colours, we translated their shapes and geometries into forms that could be woven. As for the dyes, we used azo-free dyes, which made colour-matching straightforward once we had the exact Pantone tones,” she elucidates.

The wool is manually harvested by the nomads, hand-spun by women artisans in Kashmir on the traditional yinder (spinning wheel) and then handwoven. It embodies the brand’s philosophy of conscious, slow and mindful creation, honouring the entire production chain from herding and harvesting to hand-spinning and weaving. Our favourites from the collections are the Mandarin necklined Merak shirt; the Dras Draped Shirt, defined by its soft cowl neck and dropped shoulders; a doublebreasted Lato Jacket boasting large peak lapels; and the Hemis Polo T-Shirt.

₹51,000 onwards. At MS Ramaiah Road. Available online.

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